What is a human being?
A: Humans (Homo-sapiens) are the most abundant and widespread species of
primate, characterized by bipedalism and large, complex brains.
This has enabled the development of what?
A: Advanced tools, culture, and language.
Humans are highly social and tend to live in complex
what?
A: Social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from
families and kinship networks to political states.
Social interactions between humans have established a
wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which do what?
A: Bolster human society.
Curiosity and the human desire to understand and
influence the environment and to explain and manipulate phenomena have
motivated humanity's development of what?
A: Science, philosophy, mythology,
religion, and other fields of study.
Anatomically modern humans emerged how many years ago?
A: Around 300,000.
Where did they emerge?
A: In Africa.
For most of history, all humans were what?
A: Nomadic hunter-gatherers.
The Neolithic Revolution, which began in Southwest Asia
around 13,000 years ago (and separately in a few other places), saw the
emergence of what?
A: Agriculture and permanent human settlement.
As populations became larger and denser, forms of what
developed within and between communities?
A: Governance.
Humans have continued to expand, with a global
population of what as of March 2022?
A: Over 7.9 billion.
Though humans vary in many traits (such as genetic
predispositions and physical features), any two humans are at least what?
A: 99% genetically similar.
Humans are sexually dimorphic: generally, men have
greater what?
A: Body strength.
Women have a higher what?
A: Percentage of body fat.
At puberty, humans develop what?
A: Secondary sex characteristics.
Women are capable of pregnancy and undergo menopause
and become infertile at around what age?
A: The age of 50.
How long can humans survive without
food?
A: They can survive for up to eight weeks without food.
How long without water?
A: Three or four days without water.
Humans are generally diurnal, sleeping on average how
long per day?
A: Seven to nine hours per day.
Childbirth is dangerous, with a high risk of
complications and what?
A: Death.
Often, both the mother and the father provide care for
their children, who are what?
A: Helpless at birth.
Humans have a large and highly developed what?
A: Prefrontal cortex.
The prefrontal cortex is the region of the
brain
associated with what?
A: Higher cognition.
This has allowed great technological advancements and
complex tool development possible through what?
A: Reason and the transmission of knowledge to future generations.
Language, art and trade are what?
A: Defining characteristics of humans.
Long-distance trade routes might have led to cultural
explosions and resource distribution that gave humans what?
A: An advantage over other similar species.
All modern humans are classified into what species?
A: The species Homo sapiens, coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th-century
work Systema Naturae.
The generic name "Homo" is a learned 18th-century
derivation from Latin homō, which refers to what?
A: Humans of either sex.
The word human can refer to all members of what?
A: The Homo genus, although in common usage it generally just refers to
Homo sapiens.
The name "Homo sapiens" means what?
A; 'Wise man' or 'knowledgeable man'.
There is disagreement if certain extinct members of the
genus, namely Neanderthals, should be included as a what?
A: A separate species of humans or as a subspecies of H. sapiens.